I cannot help remarking under this head, that if the conditions of those parts of the human body which are connected with the human soul, influence morals, the same reason may be given for a virtuous education, that has been admitted for teaching music and the pronunciation of foreign languages, in the early and yielding state of those organs which form the voice and speech. Such is the effect of a moral education, that we often see its fruits in advanced stages of life, after the religious principles which were connected with it, have been renounced; just as we perceive the same care in a surgeon in his attendance upon patients, after the sympathy which first produced this care, has ceased to operate upon his mind. The boasted morality of the deists, is, I believe, in most cases, the offspring of habits, produced originally by the principles and precepts of christianity. Hence appears the wisdom of Solomon's advice, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not," I had almost said, he cannot "depart from it." Thus have I enumerated the principal causes which act mechanically upon morals. If from the combined action of physical powers that are opposed to each other, the moral faculty should become stationary, or if the virtue or vice produced by them, should form a neutral quality, composed of both of them, I hope it will not call in question the truth of our general propositions. I have only mentioned the effects of physical causes in a simple state[12]. [12] The doctrine of the influence of physical causes on morals is happily calculated to beget charity towards the failings of our fellow-creatures. Our duty to practise this virtue is enforced by motives drawn from science, as well as from the precepts of christianity. It might help to enlarge our ideas upon this subject, to take notice of the influence of the different stages of society, of agriculture and commerce, of soil and situation, of the different degrees of cultivation of taste, and of the intellectual powers, of the different forms of government, and lastly, of the different professions and occupations of mankind, upon the moral faculty; but as these act indirectly only, and by the intervention of causes that are unconnected with matter, I conceive they are foreign to the business of the present inquiry. If they should vary the action of the simple physical causes in any degree, I hope it will not call in question the truth of our general propositions, any more than the compound action of physical powers, that are opposed to each other. There remain but a few more causes which are of a compound nature, but they are so nearly related to those which are purely mechanical, that I shall beg leave to trespass upon your patience, by giving them a place in my oration.